Rob Scott - Lessek_s Key

He checked Steven’s watch and called, ‘Five clocks, Gilmour. Open it.’

Four minutes later, as the trio stood around the fire watching dawn over the fjord, Steven Taylor appeared beside the far portal. ‘Hello, boys. Any tecan left?’

‘Great rutters!’ Gilmour shouted, spilling his drink down his tunic. He scurried over to clasp Steven in a bear-hug. Garec followed, while Mark knelt to close the far portal with the twig he was still holding.

‘What happened to you?’ Gilmour asked, holding Steven at arm’s length and checking the lacerations on his head and the burn on his cheek. ‘Are you badly hurt?’

‘No. I’m fine – quite a journey, though.’ He looked around, as if to check they were alone, then continued, ‘But you were wrong, Gilmour. Nerak followed me; he pinpointed my cross-over spot even with the Colorado portal closed.’

Gilmour winced and nodded towards the leather book in the boat. ‘I’m not surprised, Steven, but I’m sorry. And you’re right; I think I underestimated a number of things about Nerak. The fact that he was able to follow you through the weaker portal may be just the beginning of a long list of surprises he has in store for us. But tell us – did you find it?’ The three men were hanging on Steven’s every word now. ‘You managed to get back to the far portal, but Lessek’s key?’

Steven reached into the backpack pocket. ‘Rest easy: I did.’

There was an almost tangible exhalation of relief as he held it out, then Gilmour blanched and waved it away. ‘No, no – uh, you hang onto it.’ The book had just lashed out at him; the key was likely to kill him on the spot. That was naught but the tiniest of tastes, Fantus, drawn from the very furthest reaches of my power.

‘All right,’ Steven agreed, ‘I’ll keep it here.’ He tucked the stone into the pocket of his coat, then, slapping Mark’s shoulder, said, ‘I brought you a few things, partner. Let me get a cup of that tecan, then I can show you what I picked up on my little vacation.’ Steven didn’t notice Mark’s grim features as he walked to the fire, then looked around and asked, ‘Hey – where’s Brynne?’

Nerak took the first person he found, an elderly woman out walking her dog, an irritating Bijon with pink-rimmed eyes and an expensive coiffeur. The portal was closed, and the beacon he had followed was silent. The dark prince slammed into the old woman’s body, killing her instantly as he demanded, ‘Where does Sorenson live, Hannah Sorenson?’

The old woman had nothing in her memory to give Nerak any additional information. He dug deeper. ‘Meyers Antiques? What do you know of Meyers Antiques?’

Dietrich Meyers. He came from Austria. Owned the store over on Broadway. Died last year. It was closed up now. He seemed friendly enough. His wife used to make strudel before she died a long time ago – maybe fifteen years ago. I bought a tea set there once back in the 1970s, a nice floral, something British. Jeffrey broke two cups one morning, and I boxed it up. Ah, but that boy was a wrecking crew.

Nothing. Nerak cursed and left in a rush, ignoring the yammering of the wretched little animal as the woman’s stout body fell in a rumpled heap, her thigh-length support hose exposed as the heavy folds of her wool skirt bunched above her puckered knees.

His next victim was a high school student, in the neighbourhood to catch an art film at a nearby theatre.

Nothing; a waste of time. Nerak left the boy’s body slumped on a bus stop bench, an ad for a massage clinic showing behind the young man’s varsity letter jacket.

A bartender on break, smoking a cigarette out behind a Broadway Avenue tavern, followed. ‘Where does Hannah Sorenson live?’ he asked the dead man’s memories.

Hannah. Pretty girl. Great rack. Saw them once when she leaned over to tie her shoes. Drinks beer, sometimes has wine with her mother. They were working the sale at the old man’s antiques store after he died. She lives over on Grant. Someplace near First.

He had it. First and Grant. The bartender filled in the blanks: two blocks over and one block down. Nerak enjoyed a final drag on the cigarette before allowing the bartender’s body to collapse beside the tavern’s loading dock, the wound on his wrist still wet.

At the corner of First and Grant, Nerak took a well-dressed woman, a financial analyst. She was home from work and taking out the rubbish, the only person outside in the street. Nerak had his answers almost before the woman died.

Jennifer and Hannah. They live right across the street. Three houses down. Tragic the way that girl disappeared. Her mother has never been the same. Used to be very cheerful, but losing her father and her daughter in the same year -

Nerak interrupted the dead woman’s soliloquy: he had everything he needed for now: Jennifer Sorenson was Hannah’s mother. So that’s where Steven went. She’ll have the portal.

He cast his thoughts ahead to examine the inside of the house. No one there. Not surprising; she would already be gone. Steven was reckless and overconfident, but he had not yet proven himself stupid.

‘Where have you gone, Jennifer Sorenson?’ Nerak asked out loud. ‘Perhaps a bit of time in your house will help me track you down.’ He laughed, the sound of a soul in Hell. As he climbed the stairs to Jennifer’s front door he wondered if his latest victim was a fan of Confederate Son chewing tobacco. ‘We must introduce you,’ he promised the hapless body.

Jennifer flipped on the indicator and hoped that being lost in the anonymity of the five o’clock rush hour would offer some protection from the creature hunting her. As the radio DJs cracked jokes about politics and religion, weight loss and divorce, she moved into the centre lane, strangers’ cars surrounding her on all sides and creating a living barrier to protect her from Steven Taylor’s demon.

She tried to decide where to go. Someplace no one would expect her to be, that’s what Steven had said, somewhere no one would think of finding her, because apparently, Nerak had the ability to read minds.

Jennifer had enough money to live comfortably for some time, even if that meant staying in hotels. She had stashed a lot of cash from the liquidation sale at Meyers Antiques in the metal strongbox down in the basement, though she wasn’t sure what she had planned to do with the money. The cheques and credit card receipts were all deposited at the bank, but she still had thousands of dollars tucked inside her tote bag. Jennifer had been feeling a little guilty about her taxes, but that was gone now: if the IRS knew the cash was to save lives, her own life, her daughter’s, and perhaps to help keep the country safe from an evil force with the ability to tear the fabric of the world apart, they might not mind if she kept a few dollars. Or, if they did, maybe they would make arrangements for her to have a corner cell, something with a view. Jennifer smiled. Being in traffic was good; it was helping. As her thoughts cleared, she made a decision.

With the Friday night ski traffic and a forest fire closing several lanes in Idaho Springs, it would be hours before she reached Silverthorn. She nestled herself back into the protective centre lane and thought that another six or seven hours of traffic would be fine with her.

‘The forest of what?’ Hannah spat a mouthful of tecan into the fire. The brown liquid sizzled into steam. ‘You can’t be serious. There has to be another way through.’

‘Not one that isn’t guarded by Malakasians,’ Hoyt explained. ‘They don’t bother with this particular pass because no one would dare come that way.’

‘Except us.’

‘Well, yes, there is that, but it will get us into Malakasia without them knowing.’ He tossed her an apple he had stolen from an orchard that morning. ‘And we may get right through the forest without incident.’